


Pushin' palaces to fall

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Cigarettes, Domestic Fluff, Drunkenness, F/M, Fire, Fluff, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Post-Book 6: Checkmate (Lymond Chronicles), Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Harassment, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Tea, There is so much tea in this fic, ok maybe tea doesn't fix ALL those things, tea does fix everything, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23117761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: Thompson - drug-dealer, fixer, soon to be captain on the high seas of pirate radio - has some news to give Francis Crawford, and in his usual way, he wants to make sure he has a good time while demonstrating his usefulness. He didn’t quite reckon with having to deal with Philippa and her guests as well, though.Inspired initially bythis post, and then it got massively out of hand whenErinaceinaand I were discussing the kinds of interactions Thompson would have with the Crawfords in post-canon Band AU.
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny/Philippa Somerville, Joleta Reid Malett & Philippa Somerville
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1
Collections: Lymond fics set in the Band/'80s AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Erinaceina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinaceina/gifts).



"I see. I am rarely a fan of uninvited news, but you might as well tell me over the phone."

Francis Crawford, the artist known as Lymond, leaned one wiry arm against the wall above the telephone. His expression was unusually severe and he listened to the other person in heated silence.

"Then bring it to me here. To my eternal regret, you have the address."

He frowned at the notepad by the phone and shifted to hold the receiver against his shoulder, freeing his other hand to doodle angry shapes with a battered pencil. The lead broke under pressure with a crack.

"I rather think not. You've played that card once too often..."

Francis's snort of laughter did not convey anything close to amusement. "As I understand it, that would require you to persuade a group of my friends to join us."

He looked up at his wife, who stood in the kitchen doorway with a mug of tea in her hands, watching owlishly. Francis rolled his clear blue eyes but the peevishness in his expression dissipated at the sight of her and his lips half pulled up into a smirk.

"No, _no_. Don't do that. Don't - I'll call Adam. Blacklock, yeah. No, he doesn't."

Whatever the other person said it made him sigh and shift restlessly, but his patience for the conversation was at an end now that better company had presented herself.

"No, I'll see you there at nine, no sooner. You'd better bloody well be lucid."

A ghost of a smile ran over Francis's mouth as he met Philippa's eyes. Then he blinked suddenly and it vanished: "Think _very_ carefully before you finish that sentence, Thompson."

His knuckles paled where he gripped the receiver and he shook his head wordlessly at his wife.

"Right, I thought as much. I'll see you at nine. Yeah. Goodbye."

Philippa raised her brows in enquiry. Not many people got so thoroughly and effectively under Francis's skin, but the fixer and wheeler-dealer Thompson's power to irritate had not diminished over the years.

"Do you want moral support, my love?" She asked as he sauntered to her, scowling at his feet.

He was embarrassed about what he had to tell her: she knew from the way he bit the inside of his cheek and looked for distractions, searching her face for the best place to plant his kiss. "It's better if it's Adam this time, _Knishka_ ," he said, his hands on her shoulders, his breath soft on the mole above her eyebrow before he laid his lips over it.

Philippa smiled, her eyes closed in peace, and she sighed. "Oh dear. What does Thompson want this time?"

"Someone's been leaking the studio recordings we sent to Berlin. He says he's got hold of a new bootleg with our tracks on it."

Despite the soothing effects of tea and touch and Francis standing so close, Philippa bristled. "And, being Thompson, he refuses to simply deliver it to us, so that we can manage our own affairs?"

Francis nodded. "He's down the West Port in a strip club and won't leave until I join him or they kick him out - says if the latter happens he'll make sure to leave the tape in the club."

"So you're forcing Adam to act as chaperone..." Philippa's mouth curved behind the rim of her mug.

"Yet again, I suppose I am."


	2. Chapter 2

The cat woke before Philippa. She sat up in darkness, blinking blearily as the animal's warm weight left her legs.

"Oh, Talus..." Philippa mumbled, rubbing her face with the heels of her hands.

Soft paws padded away across the carpeted floor of the bedroom, and, momentarily, a heavier step could be heard on the landing.

Philippa fumbled across the bedside table and squinted at the glow-in-the-dark hands of her watch. She doubted her vision and switched the bedside light on to confirm her reading: it was past two in the morning.

The other side of the bed was cold and empty, the covers only disturbed where her limbs had kicked out and reached for the comforting presence that usually lay there. The glass of water she had left for Francis to drink when he came back from the club was untouched and his clothes did not litter the floor.

The steps that approached the bedroom were slow and heavy, and Philippa could not suppress the trill of fear in her pulse. It was only Talus that kept her calm: the big black cat had settled by the door to groom himself, and he purred a little as he did so, so she told herself sternly that it could only be Francis - and Francis it was.

When he at last pushed the bedroom door open, two things were quite clear to Philippa: one, that he had only just got back, and two, that he was still very drunk.

He swayed in the doorway, pale and tousled, his glasses smudged with something greasy and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Cautiously, he removed a hand from the doorknob and shielded his eyes until Philippa adjusted the lampshade.

Her greeting went unacknowledged as he shuffled forwards, and Philippa watched, dumbstruck, a little flushed, and smiling sympathetically, as he undressed with care. All through it, he kept his eyes on the floor or the ceiling and breathed steadily like a yogi to maintain his balance. He did not seem upset or angry, he was not flustered or annoyed, and she decided she could happily wait until he had slept before hearing what Thompson had had to say for himself.

For now, she just watched. Down the buttons of his black and blue lurex shirt his fingers moved, parting the dark fabric to reveal the firm, neat lines of his body. He shrugged it off and undid his trousers and shimmied out of them with a determined one-legged display that impressed Philippa greatly. The socks followed, and his underwear, and then he finished by removing his silver-framed spectacles, folding them fastidiously, and placing them on his bedside table. Then he sighed and shrugged and looked at the floor again.

"Sweetheart?" Philippa asked gently. She bit her lip - he looked so forlorn, and yet his seriousness made her want to laugh as he stood there naked and beautiful. He seemed the most dejected of marble statues - less _Le Penseur_ and more _L'homme qui a perdu ses clés_.

"Are you coming to bed?"

He made a strange sound, like he had been disturbed from some fathomless reverie, and moved as though shying away from her touch, yet he remained in the middle of the floor on the opposite side of the bed. With one very shy gesture of pause with his hand, like a conductor without his baton, he finally summoned his words. "No. Thank you," his voice was thick and slurred, and his eyelids fluttered with effort. "I'm sure you're lovely, but I have a wife."

Philippa blinked in astonishment and then had to compress her hands over her mouth to hold in her laughter.

With perfect solemnity, Francis bowed his head a little to her, pulled a spare blanket out from under the bed, and curled up on the floor.

Her shoulders quaking with mirth, Philippa slipped out from beneath the duvet and went to him. "My love, Francis! Husband, come to bed!" She chided him, her hands on his arm and her smile bittersweet. She felt no fear of the memories of their wedding night - of the first time she had invited him to leave the floor and come to bed, and his shaking, screaming, sweating body had struggled with withdrawal beside her on satin sheets. This man was not the shattered soul of that time in Las Vegas, and she was not that quelled, terrified girl, newly conscious of the way in which other lives depended upon her.

Philippa stroked the smoke-scented hair back from his creased brow and caressed his body through the blanket. "Husband," she murmured again. "Come to bed."

Francis's muscles tightened, his knees drawing up and his eyes scrunching closed, and Philippa lifted her hands, sorry that he had not understood.

She took his glasses from the bedside table and wiped their grubby lenses on the hem of the old t-shirt of his that she wore. Smoothing his hair and his brow again, turning his sleepy face upwards with gentle touches, she managed to hook his glasses over his ears and settle them.

"Francis?"

He pulled a face and his hands fought against the blanket he had so successfully tangled himself in. Gradually, reluctantly, he opened his eyes into a quizzical squint and frowned at Philippa.

"Oh, good. Oh, _Knishka_ ," he slurred, and reached the first free hand towards her face.

He let himself be helped to his feet, and he let her bring water to his lips and tuck him beneath the duvet. No sooner was he in place than Talus had returned to the mattress and curled in the hollow behind Francis's legs. Philippa rescued the bending frame of his glasses and put them aside again. She switched the light off and wound her limbs into the gaps their two forms left for her, nuzzling against Francis even though he smelled of beer and tar and tobacco.


	3. Chapter 3

The morning light was crisp in the kitchen at the back of St Mary's. Philippa stood at the sink waiting for the kettle to boil and watching the magpies play in the field. A battered blue Fiesta revved like a wasp as it struggled through the puddles and potholes of the driveway, taking each obstacle too quickly, too directly, with an arrogance that could not last long in the countryside.

Eventually the car pulled up in the back yard and Philippa sighed and plucked a fourth mug from the cupboard. The French window opened and a short, bearded man in designer sportswear entered without preamble - or wiping his shoes.

"Weel hullo, it's the wee wifey!"

Philippa closed her eyes and asked the universe to give her patience. With her sleep disturbed, her husband hungover and visitors already in the sitting room, she refused to spare Thompson any more time than was absolutely necessary.

"Good morning, Thompson. Did Francis leave something in the club last night?"

"Och did he no teel ye?" Thompson pulled up a chair, scraping its legs against the lino heedlessly. "It was muggins here who forgot - I didna have the tape on me. Told him I'd swing by wi' it today."

Philippa paused to assess his outfit. There were enough pockets - superfluous, decorative and some practical - that she supposed he could well have brought the bootleg tape with him, as he claimed.

Thompson grinned, his teeth a white line between thick layers of auburn beard, and he took a lighter and other paraphernalia from one of his pockets.

" _No_." Philippa slammed the kettle down on the sideboard as the smell hit her. "Put that out right now!"

Thompson's bushy brows raised innocently, but the scent of his joint was strong and already filling the kitchen.

"Out!" Philippa repeated. "I'll hold your head in the toilet and flush it if you don't put that out this instant."

Thompson rolled his eyes like a delinquent schoolchild, but he obeyed. "How the times ha' changed... Baccy a'reet?"

"Yes. Tea?"

"Aye. Milk, four sugars."

Philippa shot him a look of disgust from the corner of her eye, but obliged by ruining one of the four perfectly good cups of tea she had made. He switched to a roll-up cigarette and tucked the joint away for later.

"So is yer husband in?"

Philippa passed him the tea and an ashtray and folded her arms. "Do you need to see him?"

Thompson sniggered like he was used to having an audience impressed by his insolence. "I just told ye about the tape, lass!"

"Yes, and they're my demos, too. Francis is very happy for you to give the bootleg tape to me."

Seamlessly, blowing a cloud of smoke up towards the ceiling, Thompson grinned. "Ye didna ken I was coming here - he's no said eff all about it!" He chuckled to himself again. "Weak. He's lost his form, he'll be sick as a kebab hoose dug this morning, am I reet?"

Philippa picked up her own tea and savoured it, ignoring Thompson's roguish glee. "Thompson," Philippa finally said smoothly. "I do not need to ask Francis's permission to retrieve stolen goods that are as much mine as his. If you claim to be his friend in any way, you know this. I think you have had quite enough of your fun, and unless there is some other matter you need to discuss, please place the cassette on the kitchen table and see yourself out."

She was gratified to see Thompson's red-flushed skin deepen in hue around his facial hair. He cleared his throat as he took a large gulp of tea and concentrated on his cigarette to compose himself, while one hand finally rummaged in a pocket and brought out a tinted plastic cassette case.

"Look, lassie, it's a delicate matter," he said stiffly, but Philippa saw how he avoided her eyes in a new way - discomfort winning out over insouciance. He opened his mouth to speak again, but took several attempts to find the words, shifting awkwardly on his chair as he did.

"Now, me an' yer husband go way back. He kens what my business needs are."

Philippa smiled sweetly and let him squirm a little longer as she sipped her tea.

"I know what your business needs are, Thompson. Francis has told me all about how you met and what your work is. Are you in debt to someone?"

Now _that_ made him blush. Philippa hid her satisfaction behind her mug.

Thompson ran a hand through his thick, short hair and shook his head, muttering imprecations about honour among thieves and the right to talk about another man's history.

"I'm quite liquid, _thank_ ye, lassie," he finally looked up. "It's more of a technical concern."

"Try me," Philippa insisted.

When Thompson, seeing that he wasn't going to be granted access to the man of the house as easily as he had hoped, tried to dazzle Philippa with talk of radio frequencies, signal boosters and antenna ranges, he was soon to be simultaneously disappointed by her response and awed. She matched him technicality to technicality, she knew the questions to ask and the answers to give, and, even more impressive, she was certain that there was just the piece of kit he needed in the stable block – and she had the authority to bestow it upon him.

Thompson let out a low whistle between his teeth and looked her over anew. He had not noticed anyone else appear at the kitchen doorway as he talked to Philippa, and did not turn now, his eyes quite occupied by the young Mrs Crawford's body. They roved with fresh regard over her fitted jeans and the trim waist emphasised by her tucked-in t-shirt, while Philippa faced the counter to open a packet of biscuits onto a plate. With hindsight, he supposed he should have known that Lymond would only choose the best.

Behind Thompson, unbeknownst to him, a short woman with apricot hair narrowed her eyes and gestured to her son to be quiet. Hamal leaned against Joleta's leg, tugging on her hands and looking up with an imploring blue gaze.

" _Cookie soon_ ," Joleta mouthed and laid a delicate finger once more over her cupid's bow lips.

She had recognised the voice in the kitchen, and, despite Philippa's prompt action, she had recognised the smell of Thompson's joint. Wondering what was taking so long for her friend to make the tea and get rid of this unpleasant person, Joleta had decided to see the situation for herself. An old, uncomfortable memory surfaced, and Joleta Reid Malett sucked the inside of her cheek thoughtfully as she contemplated the back of the pirate's head.

She decided it might be better to prepare for the encounter, and tugged Hamal back down the corridor and into the sitting room. Here, she crouched to look him in the eyes, and she smiled mischievously. "That man is an old acquaintance of Mummy's, _Müchli_. Do you know him?"

Hamal shook his head and glanced back towards the kitchen. He was a small six-year-old, and still did not like to be around large, strange, loud men. Thompson appeared to tick most of those boxes, and he made his mother's hands tremble to boot. Hamal pouted. "Do you want to hide, Mum?"

"No," Joleta whispered. Her aquamarine eyes were very round and very bright, and her smile was determined. "No, we won't hide. Could you run to the front room and get something from Mummy's bag?"

He nodded seriously and Joleta cupped her hand to whisper in his ear.


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh, Letty, I'm sorry," Philippa turned with the plate in one hand and two mugs in the other. "I was just coming to you."

Joleta's expression was blithe and she told Philippa not to worry.

The French windows were open and the distant grunts of a stubborn man, trying single-handedly to load his small car with broadcasting equipment, drifted across the yard.

"I'm surprised you still associate with that oaf," Joleta said, sitting down opposite the French windows and taking a biscuit off the plate Philippa set before her.

Philippa put her hands on her hips and watched Thompson struggle, but she had offered her help and been rebuffed - she owed him no more. "He has his uses. And he's not normally this much trouble," she frowned. "His usual drinking buddies must be out of town."

"Or dead of cirrhosis," Joleta muttered.

Philippa made an equanimous sound as she munched a biscuit, and then started and looked about. "Where's Hamal?"

Joleta waved a hand. "Getting something for me. He'll be here soon. I think he likes cookies more than he's afraid of _him_." Joleta snapped her biscuit in half and dunked one piece vindictively in her tea.

"That's important progress," Philippa grinned.

"Hmm," Joleta said, watching Thompson come back towards the kitchen. He brushed his hands together and leaned against the open French window, affecting some kind of piratical charm.

"Hullo my bonnie, when did ye get here?"

With an icy smile, Joleta did not deign to answer him, and Thompson huffed and turned to Philippa.

"Aye, weel, ye've been a great help, so - mayhap I'll nae bother his lordship in future and come straight tae ye?" He looked her up and down as Philippa moved to hold the French door, waiting for him to leave so that she could close and lock it this time.

Thompson wasted time, dawdling in the entrance as he fumbled in a pocket.

Philippa stared at the fields impatiently, longing to get rid of him so she could finally check on Francis and take him his tea.

Hamal pattered back into the room and handed Joleta what he had brought, before reaching up on tip-toes to drag the plate of biscuits across the table.

Several things then happened together, like a house of cards collapsing on itself: Thompson turned to go and Joleta stood up. She saw his hand move before Philippa did, but her shout did not stop Thompson from reaching out to slap the backside of Philippa's jeans hard enough that Joleta felt her teeth ring with it. Joleta raised what she presumed to be a can of gel-based self-defence spray and Thompson lit up his joint, figuring the wench couldn't stop him now he was already on his way out.

Joleta fired her weapon, and the strong, sickly smell of hairspray was rapidly joined by the smell of singed beard, and Philippa, Joleta and Thompson each cried out with a different shade of outrage.

Shocked, but not disappointed to see Thompson's beard alight, Joleta followed up with a move from her martial arts class that left Thompson sprawled and groaning on the kitchen lino, his joint lost and his facial hair crackling with embers on one side on his face.

By the time Philippa knelt roughly on his chest and smothered his smouldering beard with a tea-towel, the smoke detector in the hall was beeping and Joleta had turned to check on Hamal.

The boy stood round-eyed by the kitchen table, a biscuit half inside his mouth and a doubtful look on his face that was only assuaged when he saw his mother's flushed glee. "It's ok?" he asked around the biscuit.

Joleta laughed, and so did Philippa as she leaned on Thompson's face. He groaned miserably but found that he didn't mind the smell of burnt hair so much when Francis Crawford's pretty little wife was sitting on his chest.

Without the aid of anyone in the kitchen the smoke detector ceased its noise, and Lymond himself appeared in the doorway. His face and hair were pale and yellowed like parchment, his dressing-gown hung unevenly and revealed a deep swathe of his chest, and his feet were bare. Golden stubble textured his fine jaw like sandpaper and purple shadows made his eyes puffy. He let out a small grunt as Hamal flung himself against his body and squeezed him hard around the waist.

"I take it you got what you came for, Thompson?" Francis asked in a husky approximation of his usual sarcastic drawl. He leaned over and picked up the cassette from the table. "This had better not be blank."

Thompson made a muffled sound of protest, and Philippa reluctantly lifted the towel from his face. She stood up and let Thompson find his own way to his feet - after he had discovered and retrieved his joint.

"It's no blank," he said somewhat shakily, dusting his tracksuit down. "Ye'll see. Ye've got a leak in the Berlin studio."

Francis stroked Hamal's hair as the boy clung to him and looked up, waiting patiently for the opportunity to ask his question.

"And - of course - should you come across any more of these recordings, you will pass them on, or at the very least not sell them for your own profit, is that correct?"

Thompson looked nervously around the kitchen, from Philippa's folded arms to the way Joleta continued to shake her can of hairspray menacingly. "Ah, no, no. I'll be sure and send them tae ye. Both. Tae both o'ye."

He took his leave and Philippa left the French windows open to clear the smells in the kitchen. Francis agreed to Hamal's request to be walked around the kitchen table. He adopted a stoic expression as he gripped the boy's hands and waddled across the lino, with one of Hamal's feet perched on top of each of his.

Philippa put the kettle on again and sighed. "Well, he's going to insist on meeting you in Edinburgh every time, now."

"I don't know," Joleta plonked herself into a chair at the table again. "I think he quite enjoyed that," she said with disappointment.

Francis sat as well, and adjusted his dressing gown self-consciously, pulling it closed over his chest. "Perhaps, but it goes too far against his pride. He'll be terrified I'll bring it up in public. I think, _Knishka_ ," he looked up as Philippa put a hand on his shoulder and bent to grab another biscuit. "That we won't need to see Thompson for some time."

She smiled and planted a kiss on his upturned face.

**Author's Note:**

> Finding an equivalent for _Yunitsa_ seemed desirable as it has such a specific and elusive context. I went for _Knishka_ , which is Russian slang for ‘a little pocket book carried around by many hippies, in which ad hoc drawings and thoughts were scribbled down, usually contained a great many [...] quotes in either English or in rudimentary translation, designed to serve as reminders of the emotion they had engendered when heard in their musical context.’ [[source](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/love-peace-and-rock-n-roll-on-gorky-street-the-emotional-style-of-the-soviet-hippie-community/0381EB3AB0C7B24A96855100B494BD7B/core-reader)] I like the idea of Francis drawing on Philippa for his emotional memories and inspirations, and it’s a word she would not have understood without context even if she was learning Russian herself while he was living there among counter-cultural types.  
> The title is from R.E.M.’s ‘Radio Free Europe’; Joleta calls Hamal by a Swiss term of endearment ( _Müchli_ means ‘little mosquito’ - I mean, it is still Joleta and she probably got called this a lot at school).  
> In case it’s not obvious, _L’homme qui a perdu ses clés_ means ‘the man who lost his keys’. And yes, Talus is undoubtedly descended from Erinaceina‘s Astraea (in _The Faerie Queene_ Spenser apparently calls Astraea’s groom Talus).


End file.
